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13th Sun [C] 2007

The readings today present us with the reality of decisions. We are called by God to be decisive. Decisions bring consequences with them, and we have to live with the consequences of our decisions. Nobody can undo them for us. We want to make our own decisions and we want to have the freedom to make them. God wants us to freely choose. He wants us to freely choose to love Him. That’s why He made us. And God, too, must live with the consequences of our decisions. Take a look not at that crucifix. That tells us the price God paid for living with the consequences of our decisions.

So what about decisions?

In the first reading we find the need for security being challenged by the prophet Elisha’s decision to move into an unknown future. In the second reading we’re presented with a false freedom, the freedom of license and anything goes vs. the true freedom of loving for the sake of others, particularly the Other that is God. Finally, in the Gospel, we find the challenge to move beyond the ties of family loyalty and affection into commitments outside the pale of one’s immediate family. The consequences involve movement into decisions and responses consistent with making God central in our lives.

We are all called to make hard, tough decisions in life. It’s not easy to actually leave one’s childhood family in order to cling to a spouse in marriage and start a new family. We all know of husbands or wives who have never emotionally left father or mother in order to surrender in love to their spouse. Being unable to leave their childhood they become emotionally arrested and fixated, without any further development. Not only that, but when we marry we quickly learn that there are things we cannot do, our freedom to do whatever we want is gone. So too when we have children. We soon learn then that our freedom to do a lot of things is severely restricted.

Many folks never come to the full realization that sacrifice is not merely a nice ideal, it’s a fact of life. We don’t have a choice in the matter. The question is not whether we are willing to sacrifice. After all, life is filled with sacrifices. It’s always a question of how much are we willing to sacrifice… and for what are we sacrificing? We cannot have things of value and at the same time live foot-loose and carefree lives. All commitments involve sacrifice.

Oh, to be sure, there are those who try to live free and unfettered lives, but what becomes of them? To say “yes” to anything requires saying “no” to a whole lot of other things. For instance, one cannot be “a little bit religious” for very long. You either commit or you end up saying: “I don’t go to Mass very often any more because of this, that or the other thing. To say “yes” to everything means we can’t say “yes” to anything in particular. One cannot both commit and keep all of one’s options open at the same time. “No man can serve two masters…,” Jesus said.

Keeping all of one’s options open is another way of avoiding full commitment. It’s another form of denial. That’s true in our close and intimate relationships with others. And that’s true in our relationship with Jesus Christ. Commitment, love, marriage and friendships all impose things upon us. They require an uncluttered “yes.”

But while love demands sacrifice, it also at the same time paradoxically lets us find freedom. True lovers give each to the other the gift of freedom, the freedom to be the very best selves that’s living deep down inside of them. True lovers give each other the freedom to become the best they can be.

And, paradoxically, don’t you find it to be true that freedom is found in decisiveness? You and I all know of indecisive people; we find them among our friends and acquaintances. They can’t make up their minds. They’re paralyzed and immobilized in their lack of ability to make a decision. They get hung up on the hook called “the paralysis of analysis.”

Next Sunday we celebrate the Fourth of July. Ideas of freedom will be on our minds. For many, the talk will be of our national freedom, American freedom, and so forth. All of that is of great importance, of course. But we ought to also talk about and think about our own personal freedoms and commitments?

Ask yourself, can a person live in a free country such as ours and still be a slave? I’m not talking here about the institution of slavery that once existed here in America. Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation and the Civil War settled that issue. But there are other forms of slavery. One can be held in bondage by alcohol or drugs; the lust for money imprisons many; the sex trade, pornography, and living a totally sensual life holds many in bondage. Terrorists and Jihadists presently seek to hold us hostage in fearing their actions.

In our popular culture some of the most vocal advocates of freedom are the biggest promoters of enslaving people in their own self-centered gratifications. A form to hyper-individualism is presented by many as a God-given right when, in fact, it is nothing more that self-ism, egoism, and consuming individualism that hurts others and demeans our commonly shared values. Self-ism costs others dearly.

Questions of freedom are continually put before our U.S. Supreme Court. Such questions should likewise be put before our own minds, and in the topics of conversations we have within our own families. Freedom is a wonderful gift. But it brings with it certain questions: Freedom from what? Freedom of what? Freedom for what?

Finally, we need give ourselves the freedom to focus on where we’re going in our lives along with the freedom not to be held captive by constantly looking back at our past. Do you drive a car looking through the front windshield or do you drive looking through the rear window? If you drive your car by looking through the rear window, you will certainly crash! If you are constantly living in your past you are not going forward in your life.

Jesus said to His disciples: “No one who sets a hand to the plow and looks to what was left behind is fit for the kingdom of God.” He was talking about fitness and abilities, as well as vision. We can be crippled and disabled if we’re constantly dwelling on our past mistakes, if we’re constantly feeling sorry for ourselves about what’s happened in our past, or what we’ve given up. To be truly free our eyes must be fixed on what’s ahead, not what was in the past.

When I was a little boy, my mother taught me “True happiness is something to do, someone to love, and something to hope for.” We need to have things to hope for in order to know what to do and how to love. To find happiness in true freedom we need to keep in mind for just what it is that God has given us freedom. Hope and freedom go together

For me, my home is always to walk in “the glorious freedom of the sons and daughters of God.” I am never freer than when I am doing what God wants me to do. Nor do I find greater happiness.

As we celebrate our freedoms during this forthcoming weekend, think on these things. For God has given us freedom, the freedom to decide to do good, the freedom to accomplish His purposes. What could possibly make us happier?

About Charles Irvin

Fr. Charlie was ordained a priest June 3, 1967 and has served as pastor of St. Mary Student Chapel in Ann Arbor, founded Holy Spirit parish in Hamburg, MI, served as pastor of St. Francis of Assisi parish in Ann Arbor and was pastor of St. Mary parish in Manchester, MI when he entered Senior Priest status in 2001. In 1999 he was appointed Founding Editor of FAITH Magazine which has grown into Faith Catholic Publishing located in Lansing, MI. He is now very active in his “retirement.”